WORLD YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Cristian Măcelaru, Conductor
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173rd Program of the 88th Season Interlochen, Michigan * WORLD YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Cristian Măcelaru, conductor with guest artist Christine Brewer, soprano Sunday, August 2, 2015 8:00pm, Kresge Auditorium 7:00pm pre-concert talk Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24 ................................................................ Samuel Barber (1910-1981) Christine Brewer, soprano Selections from Romeo and Juliet Suites ...................................................... Sergei Prokofiev Suite No. 3 - I. Romeo at the Fountain (1891-1953) Suite No. 3 - II. Morning Dance Suite No. 2 - II. The Young Juliet Suite No. 2 - I. Montagues and Capulets Suite No. 1 - III. Madrigal Suite No. 2 - V. Romeo at Juliet's before Parting Suite No. 2 - VI. Dance of the Antilles Suite No. 2 - VII. Romeo at the Tomb of Juliet Suite No. 1 - VII. Death of Tybalt The audience is requested to remain seated during the playing of the Interlochen Theme and to refrain from applause upon its completion. * * * PROGRAM NOTES by Amanda Sewell Samuel Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a one-movement work for soprano and orchestra. The text comes from a 1938 prose piece of the same name by journalist and critic James Agee. Barber set only the first line and then the final third of Agee’s text. Agee, perhaps best known for his book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), would later use the text of Knoxville: Summer of 1915 as the prelude to his novel A Death in the Family, which was published posthumously and earned a Pulitzer Prize. Agee’s text is a young boy’s first-person account of a summer evening spent watching, hearing, smelling, and feeling the activity surrounding his house in Knoxville, Tennessee: children playing, locusts singing, hoses leaking, and dew forming. Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 shifts between moments of serenity and agitation, all of which occur within the context of a single movement. The piece is rhapsodic, but certain themes recur and create a sense of cohesion. The opening few measures feature a plaintive, contrapuntal oboe and English horn duet that then expands to include the rest of the orchestra. A lullaby-like refrain is heard at the beginning of the piece, characterized by a lilting, folk-like melody in the vocal line and a rocking accompaniment in the orchestra, suiting the “rocking gently and talking gently” of the text. The serenity of the lullaby-like first section is suddenly shattered as “a streetcar raising its iron moan, stopping, belling, and starting” arrives on the scene, musically signaled by rapid, dissonant figures in the strings, brass, and woodwinds that gradually increase in urgency. The text becomes more declamatory in this section. As the streetcar’s bell grows fainter, the intensity of the orchestra also fades. In the next section, the narrator recounts his father draining and then coiling the hose, which is depicted with a soaring vocal melody and ascending figures in the orchestra. The lullaby-like theme briefly returns, and then the narrator describes lying on quilts in the yard with his parents. This section is characterized by contrasting motion and lush countermelodies between the strings and voice. The soprano frequently repeats a short melodic motive. As the piece draws to a close, the initial oboe and English horn melodies and the rocking theme return one last time. The young narrator is put to bed: “those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever, but will not ever tell me who I am.” The piece ends as the instruments gradually rise and float away, suggesting that the narrator has drifted off to sleep. Soprano Eleanor Steber commissioned Knoxville: Summer of 1915 from Barber, and she premiered it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1948, under the direction of Serge Koussevitzky. The piece’s poignancy and accessibility have made it a favorite with some of the greatest American sopranos of the past 75 years, including Leontyne Price, Sylvia McNair, and Dawn Upshaw. Sergei Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet Born and raised in Russia, Sergei Prokofiev left the country in 1917 to study, travel, compose, and concertize in Europe and the United States. The Soviet Union was formed in 1922, while Prokofiev was away in the West. In 1936, Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union, both because he had been promised prestigious lucrative commissions and because the Western world was experiencing the Great Depression. Instead, his passport was revoked and his music was strictly monitored. Prokofiev was instructed to avoid experimental, modern, and decadent sounds (although these terms were used synonymously, nobody was ever quite sure what they meant, but everyone was terrified that their music would be labeled with them). In Prokofiev’s original Romeo and Juliet, Juliet awakens before Romeo takes his own life, and the two live happily ever after. Prokofiev argued that dead characters would be unable to dance, but his choice was overruled by forces beyond his control. His three biggest supporters, including the official who approved the happy ending and the scenarist who helped him develop the happy ending, were all arrested and (presumably) executed. Further, Prokofiev’s fellow composer Dmitry Shostakovich’s life was threatened following the premiere of his “decadent” opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. It became clear that composers in the Soviet Union no longer had artistic freedom. Shakespeare’s tragic ending was reinstated into the ballet, and Prokofiev abandoned the music he had written for the happy ending. As the 1940 premiere neared, Prokofiev was forced to make many changes. It is not clear which decisions were explicitly politically motivated, but during this period, Soviet artists could never be too careful. Three dances were deleted because they were deemed too “exotic.” The choreographer, Leonid Lavrovsky, demanded that Prokofiev add a group dance scene, but Prokofiev refused until Lavrovsky threatened to add the scene himself, using another composer’s music; at the last minute, Prokofiev relented and dashed off the music in less than an hour. Lavrovsky and the director, Sergei Radlov, arbitrarily changed some of the orchestration, increased the dynamic levels, doubled some of the instruments, and added a number of repeats, all without Prokofiev’s knowledge or permission. Despite the pressure he faced, Prokofiev still managed to create one of the most intriguing ballet scores of the twentieth century. In addition to the standard orchestral instrumentation, he included a tenor saxophone, viola d’amore, cornet, and two mandolins to the score. (Curiously, the censors approved the saxophone, even though the instrument was associated with American jazz, which was considered degenerate music in the Soviet Union.) Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet has enjoyed an active life as a ballet and in various concert arrangements. Prokofiev created three different suites of music from the ballet, and he also arranged some of the dances into a suite for solo piano. Many orchestral conductors also create their own suites, using their own unique combinations of scenes. Today’s performance includes individual pieces excerpted from each of Prokofiev’s three Romeo and Juliet suites, and, like all of Prokofiev’s suites, the pieces are not heard in the order in which they appear in the ballet. * * * Christine Brewer Grammy Award-winning American soprano Christine Brewer's appearances in opera, concert, and recital are marked by her own unique timbre, at once warm and brilliant, combined with a vibrant personality and emotional honesty reminiscent of the great sopranos of the past. Named one of the top 20 sopranos of all time (BBC Music), her range, golden tone, boundless power, and control make her a favorite of the stage and a highly sought-after recording artist. An avid recitalist, Brewer has graced such prestigious venues as Carnegie's Zankel Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, Oberlin Conservatory, the Friends of Chamber Music, and Washington, D.C.'s Vocal Arts Society, among many others. She has appeared in Lincoln Center's "Art of the Song" series at Alice Tully Hall, the Boston Celebrity Series, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Atlanta's Spivey Hall, California's Mondavi Center, and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. Her unique voice has also been featured at the Gilmore, Ravinia, and Cleveland Art Song festivals. On the opera stage, Brewer is highly regarded for her striking portrayal of the title role in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, which she has performed with several operas companies, including the Metropolitan Opera. Attracting glowing reviews with each role, she has performed Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at San Francisco Opera, Gluck's Alceste with Santa Fe Opera, the Dyer's Wife in Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten at Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Paris Opera, and Lady Billows in Britten's Albert Herring at Santa Fe Opera. Brewer has worked with many of today's most notable conductors, including Pierre Boulez, James Conlon, Sir Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Antonio Pappano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Shaw, and Jaap van Zweden. Frequently sought after to sing the great symphonic works of Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Mahler, Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner, Janácek, and Britten, she has sung with the philharmonics of New York and Los Angeles, and the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston, and Dallas. In addition, Brewer has performed with numerous European orchestras. The versatile artist has also been invited to perform for such special engagements as the re-opening of Covent Garden with Plácido Domingo for TRH the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, a concert of Handel with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a gala performance of Górecki's Third Symphony with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and long- time collaborator Runnicles.